Data Shows That Longer Clips Are Gaining Traction on TikTok

There’s been an interesting shift in video consumption of late, which could impact your video strategy: Longer short videos are now seemingly gaining more traction with audiences.

So by “longer short” videos, we’re not talking about a shift back to long-form content of 5 minutes or more. But what is seemingly happening, based on the announcements from each app, is that consumers are now more willing to engage with 3-minute-long videos, as opposed to 30-second uploads.

In January, Instagram extended Reels to 3 minutes, after previously reporting that videos longer than 90 seconds didn’t perform as well, while YouTube has also made 3-minute-long clips eligible for the Shorts feed.

60-90 seconds used to be the sweet spot, but now, the platforms are shifting to slightly longer clips, with a view to encouraging more engagement.

And the same is now evident on TikTok as well, as demonstrated in Buffer’s latest research report, which looks at TikTok viewing trends, based on analysis of 1.1 million TikTok clips.

As per Buffer:

“TikTok videos that are longer than one minute get 63.8% more watch time than videos in the 30-60 second range.”

As you can see in this chart, longer videos get more reach, by a big margin, though Buffer’s data doesn’t specify a video length beyond one minute.

The same goes for watch time, with longer videos driving more engagement.

That then sends a positive signal to TikTok’s algorithm that this is relevant and engaging content, which likely influences the first chart above as well.

So, essentially, TikTok’s seeing the same shift as other platforms, in longer short videos getting more attention. Again, this doesn’t mean that you should be looking to post long-form epics to the app (TikTok’s upload limit is 10 minutes), but it may give you some additional food for thought in regards to what’s driving engagement, and how you can maximize your video efforts.

You can read Buffer’s full study report here.